Kelly Apple's Blog, page 55
December 30, 2014
Turning the Feral Child Human {Guest post}
Today I have the FABULOUS Amanda Shofner on the blog. Why’s she fabulous? She’s talked me off a writing edge once or twice and she helps make my books better (there would be a lot more throbbing without her input, guys. A LOT MORE.). Since Amanda has a new book out (*squeal*), she’s here to talk about characters. Namely, her wild child heroine, Janey.
*hands the mic to Amanda*
Like many writers, I was a reader first. And as a reader, I’ve always favored character-driven books. But hard-headed and stubborn characters who stuff down their problems and make less than wise decisions used to drive me crazy.
Then I wrote one.
A beta reader called Janey a “feral child.” It’s entirely appropriate. It took me three tries to write her story, then careful revisions to get it right. She is prickly and closed off and so broken I spent a good amount of time muttering, “Oh, Janey” while I wrote.
Broken characters, like Janey, who run away from everything that could possibly help them — heaven forbid they should admit weakness! — are tough to love. They’re also tough to make sympathetic. To humanize them and make them someone you can relate to.
An easy way of doing that is to give them a friend. It’s easier to care about someone who cares about someone else. But Janey is a loner, not someone who makes friends. Friends mean caring and sharing secrets, and that’s the last thing Janey wants to do.
So I needed something else.
One of my favorite writing craft books is Wired for Story, which says that stories are really about characters and that your characters need a defining life event that shapes who they are and the decisions they make. Characters like Janey have that in spades.
For Janey, it was seeing her mother murdered, then being captured and tortured by the Hunters herself. Combine that with a father whose first choice for dealing with problems is violence and you’ve got a character who’s not easy to like.
But Janey’s past also gave me material to work with. Even when you write a book from a specific character’s POV, as the author, you can include certain “tells” that show the reader the character isn’t quite as reliable as he or she thinks. In other words, you show how the character isn’t being completely truthful to him or herself.
Janey had a bracelet she fiddled with every time a particularly hard-hitting moment popped up. The bracelet was something she was working on when the Hunters came to kidnap her, and she added one of her mother’s charms to it, so it became a symbol of everything she struggled with.
The truth is, characters don’t necessarily need to be likeable to be sympathetic. They just need to be understood. It does mean readers may love or hate (or love to shake) your character. But — and this could just be me — watching people’s reactions to Janey is partly what’s so much fun about feral child characters.
Hidden Illusions (The Hunted #2) by Amanda Shofner
She’s driven by one purpose
Janey Jones may have escaped the Hunters, but the scars they inflicted still mark her, inside and out. One goal keeps her moving forward: kill Captain Reed, the man who tortured her, destroyed her Gift, and murdered her mother. She’ll do anything to succeed.
He’s seen what blind ambition can do
Will Brown protects people. First his family, now the people he leads in the Gifted army. He knows what needs to be done to keep everyone safe: destroy the Hunters for good. And that’s exactly what he plans to do. The right way.
But one secret binds them, and its ramifications are explosive
When Will and Janey are thrown together, they’re forced to put aside their differences for a greater purpose: find a way to stay alive—and salvage the mission to cut the Hunters down, once and for all.
What they uncover will change their lives forever
Series order
1. Elusive Memories
1.5. The Unexpected Gift
2. Hidden Illusions
Buy links
Ebook: Amazon US | Amazon CA | Amazon UK | Amazon AU | B&N | Apple | Kobo | Smashwords
Paperback: coming soon!
The post Turning the Feral Child Human {Guest post} appeared first on Kelly Apple.
December 23, 2014
2015 releases…
I always get a kick out of planning out my upcoming year and seeing how or if things change. What’s in store for 2015? you ask. LET ME TELL YOU!
In 2015 you’re going to see:
…books 3 and 4 in the Stronghold series. Refuge has been written (possibly a late January/early February release) and Stronghold is percolating in my brainpan.
…there’s a strong possibility a prequel to the Stronghold series will make an appearance. I HAVE A VISION OF HOW IT PLAYS OUT AND OMG!ZOMBIES!
…book 3 in the Demonkind Chronicles series. We’re back to Bas and Evie with this book and I LOOOOOVE writing those two.
…a spin-off series featuring Ari and her monstrous friends. The series is tentatively titled Monstrous Matchmaker and book 1 is mostly written. (Honestly, the Monstrous Tales/Monstrous Matchmaker books are so fun to write, they help me recharge and remind me to ENJOY MYSELF while telling my stories.)
…at least book 2 and more than likely book 3 in the Grimwood series. I have books 2 through 6 plotted, so it’s just a matter of finding the time to get them written.
As for 2014, I released a total of 17 books this year. Frankly, that number far exceeded my original goal. I had only planned on 12, but Ari and her monsters refused to be silenced and BOOM 17 books were written.
Here’s to a fun and exciting (and productive) 2015!
The post 2015 releases… appeared first on Kelly Apple.
December 16, 2014
Introducing the Male Model Chronicles by Christi Snow
Justin by Christi Snow
releasing January 21, 2015
Goodreads link
The Model: Justin James Cadwell
The Photographer: Kruse Images & Photography
Justin…
Tara Malone is having one of those lives. Born to Oscar award-winning actor, Anthony Malone, and model-famous beauty, Veronica Scott, she should have it made. But her curvy figure and out-of-control frizzy red hair are just the start of her many, many issues. Now to make matters worse, she’s started out her week by running over model, Justin James, with her car. She had a lot of fantasies about the cover model, but never did any of them include vehicular assault.
Justin James doesn’t have time for two broken wrists, but neither does his over-achieving family. He can’t open up his fridge or unzip his fly without excruciating pain and no one else has the time to help him. Tara already shot him down at the accident scene, but maybe he can work this so that the curvy bombshell has a reason to hang around for a bit. He’s not above using guilt if it means he gets to know her better.
The first in a new series of novellas inspired by Shauna Kruse’s photography and her beautiful male models.
The Male Model Chronicles.
Lance by Christi Snow
coming Spring/Summer, 2015
Goodreads link
The Model: Lance Jones
The Photographer: Kruse Images & Photography
Lance…
As the owner and CEO of Lancer Industries, Matthew Lancer spends his days in three piece suits and conducting meetings that affect the world financial markets. What the world doesn’t know is that Matthew Lancer has a deep, dark secret. He’s actually super-hot, super-sexy, and covered in tattoos. When he can, he spends his free time letting loose as bad-boy male model, Lance Jones. No one knows and it has to stay that way or Lance will lose the one thing that’s keeping his high pressure life sane.
Andi Kelly writes erotic romance. Day in and day out, she imagines a world filled with bondage, multiple partners, and just a few whips and chains. But that’s the fantasy life in her novels. In the real world, she’s an introvert who spends her days at home living out her fantasies through her laptop. Andi’s finally worked up the courage to ask Shauna Kruse if she can sit in on the photoshoot for Andi’s next novel…with her model-crush, Lance Jones.
But Lancer Industries has a mole and it’s put both Andi and Lance in danger. Lance’s two worlds collide and when corporate espionage meets erotic romance, there’s no telling what might happen.
The second in a new series of novellas inspired by Shauna Kruse’s photography and her beautiful male models.
The Male Model Chronicles.
Joshua by Christi Snow
coming Fall, 2015
Goodreads link
The Model: Joshua Scott Brown
The Photographer: Kruse Images & Photography
Joshua…
December is the time for romance, twinkling lights, and roaring fires in the fireplace. It’s also time for the annual Holiday Fantasy Lingerie show. This year, the show has a masculine twist with the introduction of male models who were once soldiers.
Joshua Scott Brown has made quite a name for himself as a male fitness model since he got out of the Air Force. But nothing prepares him for the media circus that occurs after he catches one of the female lingerie models during the live show, preventing her from a ten foot fall. Now the lingerie company wants to turn that media coverage into holiday profit by pairing him up romantically with the model. Unfortunately, he only has eyes for Autumn Layne, the publicist who keeps pushing him into another woman’s arms.
The third in a new series of novellas inspired by Shauna Kruse’s photography and her beautiful male models.
The Male Model Chronicles.
About the author:
As an avid reader her entire life, Christi Snow always dreamed of writing books that brought to others the kind of joy she felt when she read. But…she never did anything about it besides jot down a few ideas and sparse scenes.
When she turned 41, she decided it was time to go after her dream and started writing. Within four months, she’d written over 150,000 words and hasn’t stopped since.
She’s found her calling by writing about sexy, alpha heroes and smart, tough heroines falling in love and finding their passion. She’s truly living the dream and loving every minute of it.
Her tagline is… Passion and adventure on the road to Happily Ever After. She’s loving this adventure!
www.Christi-Snow.com
Amazon page
Author Facebook page
About the cover designer:
Because of the nature of the series, the cover designer also happens to be one of the models…Joshua Scott Brown. (His book will be the third in the series.) Joshua’s graphic design business, JSB Graphic Design, is still getting off the ground, but he’s been wonderful to work with. Always professional, always positive, and extremely talented…
https://www.facebook.com/joshuascottbrowndesigns
Email: jsbgraphicdesigns@gmail.com
A note from the author…Where did the series come from?
I follow a very talented photographer on Facebook, Shauna Kruse of Kruse Images & Photography. Just about two months ago, she posted a photo of Justin James Cadwell, stating that this gorgeous model had yet to be contracted for his first cover. That sent my writing muse into frenetic action and two weeks later, Justin was written and this series was born.
Series details: Male Model Chronicles…
The Series Order (although every installment is a complete stand-alone work):
Justin (Justin James Cadwell)
Lance (Lance Jones)
Joshua (Joshua Scott Brown)
This series is a whole new venue for me as a writer. The stories are generally contemporary romance although Lance will delve a bit into my more normal romantic suspense arena….and they’re shorter. Most the stories will run about 30-35,000 words. They are meant to be fun and entertaining…and Shauna will make an appearance in each story.
While the names (the male models and Shauna only) used in the stories signify real people, the stories are completely fictional. They in no way reflect true events, incidences, or beliefs by these people in real life. Besides the names, everything else is from the author’s imagination and should be taken as such.
And the source for ALL of the inspiration for the series…
Shauna Kruse’s gorgeous photography with
Kruse Images & Photography
You can visit the author’s website today for a special little excerpt from the world of Justin…
www.Christi-Snow.com
The post Introducing the Male Model Chronicles by Christi Snow appeared first on Kelly Apple.
December 15, 2014
Grab your copy of Cursed Blood!
It’s HERE! Cursed Blood, the first in my dark fairy tale series, has triumphantly arrived on Amazon (with more platforms coming soon!).
If you like tormented heroes, dark curses, and ladies who like to step in to save their men when needed, this series might interest you. Because, you know, it has all those things. Also, fairy tales where the heroes and heroines are gender flipped. Rapunzel is no longer the wistful princess trapped in a tower. Nope. Rapunzel is now Zel and I sort of love him for how he managed to endure everything he endured.
Right. So. Cursed Blood….
Cursed Blood (Grimwood #1)
Zel has lived his entire life within the confines of a square mile of the forest. The tower is his refuge. The witch, his captor. Forced to do her bidding, he dreams of a day when he can leave the cursed place and be free.
But fate has other plans and freedom can take many guises.
As a girl, Geneva devoured stories about the wild boy who lived at the highest point in the forest. A changeling, a prince, a forest spirit—all the tales tell a different story. Imagine her surprise when she stumbles across the cursed tower and the young man held prisoner there.
It’ll take all her cunning and courage to free him.
What she doesn’t know is that freeing him might doom them all.
Like I mentioned earlier, it’s only available at Amazon at this point, but it’s been uploaded to a number of other platforms and should be available shortly. I’ll update the series page with links as soon as they go live.
The post Grab your copy of Cursed Blood! appeared first on Kelly Apple.
December 9, 2014
It’s COMING!
Howdy, y’all! I’ve been a very lax blogger lately, but I have GOOD NEWS to report. I’ve been busy getting Cursed Blood (Grimwood #1) ready to release into the wild. It will definitely be out before the end of the month.
Okay. Wait. Whenever I say something is DEFINITELY going to happen, something weird and catastrophic happens that wouldn’t happen to anyone else. Like, a sewer line will burst and I’ll be drafted into the sewer line cleaners brigade and have to shovel shit for an untold amount of time and will only be paid in cutesy air fresheners that I’m forced to hang from my stinking body so as to not drive others away with my stench.
Since I really don’t want to be part of the sewer line cleaners brigade I’ll backpedal a bit and instead say that I’m, like, really close to 100% certain Cursed Blood will be out before the end of the month.
*throws confetti*
So prepare yourselves for a little cursing, a little kissing, and a little dark fairy tale. It’ll be here before you know it.
The post It’s COMING! appeared first on Kelly Apple.
November 11, 2014
Still NaNo-ing strong!
Thus far, November has been good to me. I’m closing in on the *ahem* climax of Refuge (book 3 in the Stronghold series) and I’ve been toying with revisiting Ari’s world again. This would be a spin-off from the Monstrous Tales series and it would have Ari using her monster-lovin’ radar to find HEAs for her monster-y friends. Spoiler alert: I know I’m feeling serious about a project when I start planning out covers.
If I do give in and begin writing the spin-off, I would NOT be releasing them as quickly as I released the Monstrous Tales series. Mostly because then I’d have time for nothing else. Seeing as how there are a few series-in-progress already on my plate, I don’t want to neglect those and have another LONG wait between books like I had for book 2 in The Demonkind Chronicles.
BUT… all this is just in the planning stages right now. I’m going to work on finishing Refuge first before I let myself start thinking too far ahead. I have edits on the first Grimwood book to tackle (crossing my fingers that I can get everything done for a December release!) and that’s going to take precedence over starting anything new.
So. Zombies, monsters, and curses. That’s what’s been on my mind.
The post Still NaNo-ing strong! appeared first on Kelly Apple.
November 4, 2014
Zombies and threesomes? OH, MY!
It’s November and every November for the last few years I’ve participated in NaNoWriMo. It’s an excuse to write a metric shit-ton of words with a whole bunch of other people from around the world. I LIKE THAT.
This year, my writing time isn’t quite as… let’s say, abundant as in previous years. So while I don’t expect to hit 50K words, I do expect to finish Refuge (Stronghold #3) and start another book. Oh, and I’ll be editing. BECAUSE THAT’S WHAT ONE DOES.
Expect updates throughout the month about zombies, threesomes (not with zombies), and twisted fairy tales. Or maybe another round of monster erotica. I JUST DON’T KNOW YET!
The post Zombies and threesomes? OH, MY! appeared first on Kelly Apple.
October 21, 2014
Introducing Grimwood
QUESTION: Is anybody interested in a new series by yours truly? JUST CURIOUS! And by “just curious,” I mean there’s going to be a new one coming your way in December. Because, you know, I only have two current series I’m working on and THAT’S NOT NEARLY ENOUGH!
So. Grimwood. I revealed the cover for book 1 some time in the murky past (I’d go look at exactly when, but I’m pleasantly full of cake and that seems like a lot of work.) and now I think I should spill some details. *throws confetti details all around*
I’ve been calling this series my “dark fairy tale retelling” series. And it is. There’s bloodshed and dismemberment (kinda) and wicked curses that get thrown around all willy-nilly. I also gender flipped the heroes and heroines from the classic tales. That’s right, the big, bad wolf is going to be a lady wolf. The Beast is going to be a chick. The girl in the tower is going to be a dude.
Book 1 takes on the story of Rapunzel. My poor, sweet Zel who’s held captive by an evil witch and made to do bad, bad things. *sniffle*
Cursed Blood (Grimwood #1)
Zel has lived his entire life within the confines of a square mile of the forest. The tower is his refuge. The witch, his captor. Forced to do her bidding, he dreams of a day when he can leave the cursed place and be free.
But fate has other plans and freedom can take many guises.
As a girl, Geneva devoured stories about the wild boy who lived at the highest point in the forest. A changeling, a prince, a forest spirit—all the tales tell a different story. Imagine her surprise when she stumbles across the cursed tower and the young man held prisoner there.
It’ll take all her cunning and courage to free him.
What she doesn’t know is that freeing him might doom them all.
I’ll be fleshing out the Grimwood series page over the next few days while I work on edits for this bad boy. (I’m also working on the 1st draft of Refuge, book 3 in the Stronghold series. I be busy, man. BUSY!)
The post Introducing Grimwood appeared first on Kelly Apple.
October 14, 2014
Grab your copy of Haven!
Haven goes live tomorrow. Have you preordered your copy?
Haven (Stronghold #2)
It’s been a week since the virus that turned normally sane people into ravenous monsters ripped through their town. Desperate to get to his family, Marcus and Sarah had ended up at the Three Pines Retirement Community by chance. Trapped on the second floor, they had a stash of food and a relatively safe haven to ride out what was going on outside the doors.
But their families were still out there and until Marcus knows the truth about what happened to them, he can’t sit idly by.
Sarah knows what Marcus is driven to do. Barricaded inside a retirement home with no contact with the outside world is killing him slowly. But the two of them against the hordes of flesh eating monsters roaming the streets seems impossibly suicidal. She’s seen enough horror movies to know that the only safe place isn’t going to be found in the town they both grew up in.
They need a plan, one that will give Marcus the peace of mind he needs and still keep them safe. It’s when they realize there are other uninfected in the building that things start to come together…
Grab it from Amazon!
The post Grab your copy of Haven! appeared first on Kelly Apple.
September 30, 2014
Haven available for pre-order!
Now that Amazon is allowing pre-orders for self-pubbed authors like myself, I wanted to see if I could get organized enough to get one up and running prior to the release date I had planned. I have a tendency to lean toward the “if the book’s ready, why not put it out NOW?” school of thought, so this is something new for me.
That said, Haven is available for pre-order through Amazon. Yep. I buckled down and got it to my editor and BOOM! Pre-order. I can totally get things done when I set my mind to it!
Anyway. For your reading pleasure, Haven…
Haven (Stronghold #2)
It’s been a week since the virus that turned normally sane people into ravenous monsters ripped through their town. Desperate to get to his family, Marcus and Sarah had ended up at the Three Pines Retirement Community by chance. Trapped on the second floor, they had a stash of food and a relatively safe haven to ride out what was going on outside the doors.
But their families were still out there and until Marcus knows the truth about what happened to them, he can’t sit idly by.
Sarah knows what Marcus is driven to do. Barricaded inside a retirement home with no contact with the outside world is killing him slowly. But the two of them against the hordes of flesh eating monsters roaming the streets seems impossibly suicidal. She’s seen enough horror movies to know that the only safe place isn’t going to be found in the town they both grew up in.
They need a plan, one that will give Marcus the peace of mind he needs and still keep them safe. It’s when they realize there are other uninfected in the building that things start to come together…
I’m currently working on Refuge, the third book in the foursome, and I’m having FUN talking about blood and guts again. And vomiting. There seems to be a lot of that in these book. SO IT GOES, right?
In the meantime – Haven. It’ll go live October 15th! HAVE AT IT!
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